More than discussing and deciding about European Union’s helps to Africa, the summit in Abidjan has also face the migrants’ problem. They have especially talked about the Libyan situation, which CNN has recently explicitly denounced, broadcasting a video showing the so-called “rescue centres” for migrants’ situation. We are talking about barbarities and cruelties, which Libyans are responsible for.

European nations, especially France and Italy, introduced the agreement between Europe and the African Union – the Joint Statement on the Migrant Situation in Libya, which you can download from the Africa Reports’ page on this website – as it was a definite step towards a solution of the migrations’ situation. They have once again padded the news out and tried to pull the wool over our eyes.

The decisions they have taken – and Libyan official government have decided to cooperate, even if it has less authority than those tribes and militias managing these “prisons” – seem crucial: find criminals, bring them to justice, repatriate migrants, help asylum seekers to have a status, call UN to organize these activities, try and find a political solution to Libyan governmental crisis.

I have the odd sensation that problems are too many and that they are overlapping one another.

Let’s clear things up.

Libya has two governments and thousands of local powers.

Because of anarchy, migrants’ internal routes are flowing across Libya, especially those of Sahara’s and West Africa’s people (Nigerians too). Even migrants from Eritrea – fleeing from a terrible dictatorship – and some Somali people – fleeing from war – join these routes. The Libyan route is not the only one, but it’s very busy.

Some months ago, Italy, fearing migrants’ arrivals and their political consequences, sealed an agreement – an economic and temporary one, I suppose – with Sahel’s nations and tribes, to slow arrivals down.

Therefore, those people expecting to cross Libya or, being already there, to make their last jump towards Europe, were caught and stuck inside the centres and in Libyans’ hands, who tried to gain money from their families. The ones having no money, turned into slaves or prostitutes for local criminals.

Now CNN is denouncing these cruelties.

Good!

And those nations discussing in Abidjan are just patching the situation over. Maybe the Libyan route – which is the most inhuman one – will get weaker, but new routes are likely to grow.

There is only one thing that’s certain: they have not solved the problem. They can’t’ solve this problem shortly. In the long turn, it could be faced only by creating a real Marshall Plan, which didn’t see the light in Abidjan.

I am going to talk more about the matter in my next articles on this blog, and by introducing my book, which contains reflections also about this problem.